Archive for the ‘joey kamide’ tag

Last post covering local baseball for 2019; this one tries to summarize all the various “Player of the Year” announcements from various shops, both local and national.

I kind of ran out of gas on this one; fighting through a dozen different paywalls and I never could find the official announcements of Virginia regional all-player lists. But this is still a pretty good summary of the various POTY lists.

Individual Player Accolades Announced

In addition to being playoff-baseball time, this is also the time of the year that we start to see player awards. I’ll put these in as they publish, but we won’t expect most of these until the end of June.

Welcome to my DC Area Prep Baseball Tourney coverage for 2019. We kind of got pressed for time this year, so we’re summarizing at the finish of all the area regional and state championships this year all in one post instead of spreading it among 3-4 different posts like we’ve done in the past.

This post summarizes the State championships for DC, MD and VA, highlighting the regional champs, and reports on the winners of the various big-time private school conferences.

Virginia

All state brackets available from this link at VHSL, and the regional brackets are here. In 2019, The state semis/finals got pushed a week across the board due to weather. This gave pitching-weak teams a distinct advantage versus having to win a 3-games-in-5 days format. All finals were on Friday 6/14/19.

Region 6B: #1 James River (19-3), #2 Colonial Forge (16-8). Top seeds Cosby and Thomas Dale both upset first round.

Region 6C: #1 Lake Braddock (23-3), #2 West Springfield (14-11). Region final a rematch of the district final; a very weak Region this year (only 7 teams even with winning records).

Region 6D: #1 Westfield (22-3), #2 Centreville (18-8); Region final a rematch of the district final.

Class 6 State Quarters results: All four regional champs advanced in close games on 6/4/19. Westfield ended West Springfield’s attempts to repeat as State Champs 5-4 in walk-off fashion. Ocean Lakes took out Colonial Forge 2-0. Lake Braddock held off Centreville 5-4, scoring 5 in the first and making them stick, and James River beat Cox 4-3.

Class 6 State Semis: Both Northern Virginia teams advanced to the final; Lake Braddock taking out James River 9-6, and Westfield taking out Ocean Lakes 9-7.

Class 6 State Final: Lake Braddockwins its first State title since 2012 6-2 over Westfield behind a huge day from All Met POTY Lyle Miller-Green‘s massive day at the plate.

Class 5 State Quarters results: One upset in the State Quarters. Halifax destroyed Stone Bridge 11-0 to advance. The other regional champs all went through: Stafford blanked Broad Run 5-0. Hickory squeaked by Prince George 3-1 to end their chances to repeat as State champs. And Mills Godwin blanked Menchville 5-0.

Class 5 State Semis Results: Stafford walked-off Hickory in a crazy 11-10 game, while Mills Godwin walked-off Halifax in the other 5-4 to advance to the state title game.

Region 4B: #1 Hanover (19-2), #2 Midlothian (15-7); Hanover cruised to title as #1 seed, looking to get back to the state final for the 3rd time in 4 years. Midlothian makes the state tourney for the 1st time since 2005.

Region 4D: #1 Liberty Christian Academy (24-1), #2 Salem (18-5); LCA does not slip up this year, cruising to title as #1 seed.

Class 4 State Quarters results: Just one upset in the quarters, with Great Bridge downing Hanover 7-4 in a rematch of the 2014 AAA state championship. Liberty Christian destroyed Kettle Run 11-0. Lafayette blanked Midlothian 8-0. Riverside beat Salem easily 9-3.

Class 4 State Semis Results: Lafayette continued its upsetting ways, taking out one of the top teams in the state in Liberty Christian 8-2, while Riverside blanked Great Bridge 3-0 to advance to the state title game for the 2nd time in 3 years.

Class 4 State Final: Riverside literally “threw away” the game, losing on a 2-run error to Lafayette, completing an improable run for the Williamsburg-based school.

2012: AAA: Lake Braddock d Kellam 4-0. Lake Braddock lost to West Springfield in the regional title game but then blitzed to a state championship.

2011: AAA: Great Bridge d South County in the state final, giving the powerful South County its first and only loss on the season after starting the season 28-0. Lake Braddock was the regional finalist and lost to Great Bridge in the state quarters.

2010: AAA: West Springfield d Woodbridge in the final, giving Woodbridge its only loss on the year. WT Woodson regional finalist.

Complete history of Virginia HS Champions: from VHSL’s website. Covers all sports and has results for a century. Lots of fun to dig through. Note: if this link fails, its because VHSL has moved it yet again; I have an updated copy of the history books in PDF format if you’re interested.

Maryland

Full Brackets here at the MPSAA website and direct links to the four State-wide brackets are linked directly below. Here’s your 2019 champs.

Maryland 4-A: Regional champs Eleanor Roosevelt (undefeated entering playoffs), Sherwood, Old Mill and Walt Whitman are regional champs. Sherwood and Old Mill in the final, and Old Millwins the state title in 9 innings, giving Sherwood only its 2nd loss of the year.

Division I: Local teams participating included #9 Paul VI, #4 O’Connell, #6 Episcopal, and #7 Flint Hill. None advanced, as the VISAA Division I tournament was dominated by Richmond teams. In the end, nationally ranked and #1 seed Benedictine won the Division I title over #2. St. Christophers.

A side-note: DC private school baseball power house Riverdale Baptist did not field a Varsity team in 2019 after its coach took a college job, it lost a ton of senior talent and the rest of the remaining seniors all transferred to play for more competitive teams. For a team that was nationally ranked in 2018, its kind of jarring not to be talking about them in a DC-area prep story. Lets hope the new coach can get the program back on track.

Local and National High School Baseball Ranking Lists: highlighting where local teams ended up.

Washington Post All Met Sports Area top-10 ranking (5/20/19): St. Johns the clear #1 team in the area, winning WCAC, DCSAA titles.

These National rankings are dominated by teams in Texas, Florida and California, as you might expect. These teams can play nearly 40 games and usually have at least 15-20 under their belts before DC/MD/VA teams even get going. So its somewhat of an accomplishment just to have a local team get some recognition. In fact, any cold-weather state team appearing in these lists is pretty special.

Major Newspaper Links/Resources for following prep baseball around the state

https://twitter.com/toddeboss/lists/prepbaseball: I maintain an open list at my twitter account via this link, which contains direct links to dozens of local resources (including all the below). Way too many retweets from the travel team accounts especially, but its a good way to keep up with local ball.

#4: Players of the Year/All-State lists and final rankings (this post); publishes early July once all the all-state lists are published

We now should be through the “All-Everything” lists start getting published. Here’s my tracker of them. I try to note the player of the year in each case. If i’m missing something, please let me know. I’ve put results in red that I either cannot find or are behind a paywall or seem to have been discontinued. I realize this is kind of anti-climactic at this point; lots of these players mentioned were drafted weeks ago and may already be playing. But it takes some of these orgs til late June/early July to announce.

Individual Player Accolades Announced

In addition to being playoff-baseball time, this is also the time of the year that we start to see player awards. I’ll put these in as they publish, but we won’t expect most of these until the end of June.

Perfectgame.org/Rawlings All-Americans: Jeremiah Jackson, St. Luke’s Episcopal HS (Ala.) is PG National POTY. Mississippi State commit, 2nd round 2018 pick by Angels. Matthew Libratadore is national pitcher of the year, Ryan Weathers is national 2-way player of the year.

2012: AAA: Lake Braddock d Kellam 4-0. Lake Braddock lost to West Springfield in the regional title game but then blitzed to a state championship.

2011: AAA: Great Bridge d South County in the state final, giving the powerful South County its first and only loss on the season after starting the season 28-0. Lake Braddock was the regional finalist and lost to Great Bridge in the state quarters.

2010: AAA: West Springfield d Woodbridge in the final, giving Woodbridge its only loss on the year. WT Woodson regional finalist.

Complete history of Virginia HS Champions: from VHSL’s website. Covers all sports and has results for a century. Lots of fun to dig through. Note: if this link fails, its because VHSL has moved it yet again; I have an updated copy of the history books in PDF format.

#4: My theoretical “All DC/MD/VA Dream tournament” pairings, once all the state champs are finalized.

#5: Players of the Year/All-State lists and final rankings; publishes early July once all the all-state lists are published.

Lets see where we stand now with Virginia having completed their regional tournaments and setup state semi finals’ matchups.

All Virginia regional finals were played on 6/1/18. District and Regional Winners in all cases highlighted in bold red.

Northern Virginia

Virginia district tournaments start up on 5/16/18 and Regionals started up on 5/23/18. All local district playoff brackets are well kept at NovaBaseballmagazine.com.

A reminder that there was some major re-alignment from last year; regional powerhouse Madison was moved out of the Liberty district for the first time in decades, now joins the strong Concorde division with some bigger schools. There are now mixed conferences, splitting teams up that were formerly 4A, 5A and 6A. Northern Va districts are pretty consistent; mostly consisting of all 6A or 5A teams … but other districts around the state are a mess, having teams spanning in some cases 4 class sizes. In 6A, we’ll have 6-A Region A and B from the Richmond/Va Beach areas and Regions C & D from the Northern Virginia areas. New district to region alignment table here.

In a first in my memory, nearly a week of rain forced organizers to literally abandon playoff games and just hand out district titles. See below.

Cardinal (mostly 6-A): Forest Park won the title over Potomac (who went to the 5-C tourney)

Gunston District (6-A): #1 West Potomac takes the title.

Patriot (6-A): #1 Lake Braddock took the title.

In the Regional tournament (draw here), the District winners were seeded West Potomac, Forest Park, Lake Braddock and at-large Woodbridge. In the quarters on 5/25/18, WT Woodson upset West Potomac, West Springfield beat Robinson, Lake Braddock beat Colgan, and Forest Park held off Stuart. The expected top seeds Lake Braddock and West Springfield advanced to the final/qualified for states and West Springfield springs the upset over perhaps NoVa’s top team to win the regional title.

Class 6 Region D “Northern Region”

Concorde District (6-A): Madison beat Chantilly.

Cedar Run (6-A): Battlefieldgiven the title by default over Patriot.

Liberty (6-A): #4 Yorktowntook the title

In the Regional tournament (draw here), the District winners were seeded Yorktown, Battlefield, Madison and at-large Marshall (who competes in a weird 6a/5a district). I probably would have seeded it so that Madison/Battlefield was a final but Marshall may be favored to beat the upstart Yorktown. Quick prediction: Battlefield over Marshall in the final. In the Quarters on 5/25/18, Centreville upset Yorktown, Chantilly upset Marshall, South Lakes upset Madison and only Battlefield held serve in an upset-laden regional, so my predictions were way off. I still sense Battlefield is the power of the region. In the semis, Chantilly beat their neighborhood rivals Centreville and Battlefield held off the upstart South Lakes to make the Regional final/qualify for states. In the Northern Region final, Battlefieldturned a 4-1 deficit quickly into a 7-4 lead and made it stick, beating Chantilly for the region crown.

Southern Virginia Class 6 Regions:

Class 6 Region A

Beach District (5a and 6a): sends Ocean Lakes, First Colonial, Cox, and Kellam.

Eastern District (mix): only 6A team Grandby

Peninsula District (mix): sends only 6A team Woodside

Southeastern District (mix): sends Western Branch, Oscar Smith

In the Regionals (draw here)… Grandby, Western Branch (your defending state champ), Ocean Lakes and First Colonial are the seeds. Oscar Smith beat Ocean Lakes in the 1st round; other seeds held. First Colonial upset Grandby while Western Branch advanced to the regional final/qualified for states. In the final, First Colonial continued their upsetting ways, topping one of the best teams in the state after nearly squandering an 8 run lead to win the Region title.

Class 6 Region B

Dominion District (mix of 3,4,5,6A teams): Manchester, James River, Cosby and Clover Hill advanced to the Regional tourney, in that seed order.

Central District (mostly 5A): sent its only 6A team Thomas Dale

Commonwealth District (mostly 5A): sent its two 6A team Colonial Forge and Riverbend to the regionals.

Piedmont Distrct (mostly 3A and 4A): sent its only 6A team Franklin County to the regionals.

In the Regionals (draw here), Manchester, James River, Thomas Dale and Cosby are the top 4 seeds in order. Manchester was upset in the first round by Roanoke power Franklin County; other seeds went through to the semis. Cosby and Thomas Dale advanced to the final/qualified for states. There, Cosby beat Thomas Dale 8-1 to win the region.

National (mostly 5-A): #1 Marshall faces off against #3 Edison for the title. Marshalldestroyed Edison for the title and got an “at-large” bid into the 6-A regional tourney. Edison, Wakefield and Stuart to the 5A region.

In the Regional tournament (draw here), the top 3 teams from National (not including the 6A teams) and the top 5 teams from Potomac made for an 8-team regional. Top seeds are Freedom-South Riding and Edison. Edison was upset in the first round en route to all the National district teams being defeated by stronger Potomac district rivals. Freedom-South Riding and defending state champ Briar Woods to the regional final/state qualification, where Freedom-South Riding easily beat Briar Woods 9-3 to win the region.

Class 5 Region D

Cardinal (mostly 6-A): Forest Park won the title over Potomac, which was the only 5A team in the district and is the #1 seed in the regional tourney.

Commonwealth District (mostly 5A): Mountain View given the title by rain-induced default. sent Massoponax, North Stafford, Mountain View, Stafford, Brooke Point,

Piedmont District (mix): sent Halifax county.

Jefferson District: sent Orange, Albemarle,

River Ridge District: sent Prince Henry (Roanoke)

Valley District: sent Harrisonburg

Blue Ridge District: sent William Fleming

Seven districts to send 12 teams to regionals.

In the regional tournament (draw here), Potomac, and Halifax were the two top seeds, split by “north” and “south” areas of this region. They played out essentially two mini regional tourneys, with the winners meeting at the end but both going to states. Potomac and Halifax held serve and made the regional final/qualified for states. Potomacbeat their southern Virginia rivals for the region title 4-2, their first regional title since their awesome run in the late 1980s.

Southern Virginia Class 5 Regions:

Class 5 Region A (mostly Tidewater area teams)

In the regional tournament (draw here), Mencheville and Maury the top seeds. Both advanced to the regional final/qualified for the state tournament, though Maury was beaten on the field by Hickory, who then had to forfeit due to their starter throwing 118 pitches (the limit is 110). In the final, Menchville won 6-3.

Class 5 Region B(mostly Richmond teams)

In the regional tournament (draw here), Godwin and Prince George the top seeds. #8 Regional seed Deep Run upset #1 seeded Godwin then destroyed Freeman to make the regional final against #2 seed Prince George. There, the #8 seed continued its run, topping one of the best teams in the state to win the region title. Deep Run over Prince George.

Class 4

Class 4A Region A (Tidewater): Draw here: Grafton and traditional power Great Bridge the top seeds, but Great Bridge upset early. Grafton easily advanced over Deep Creek and Jamestown to the Region final/qualify for the State tournament. Grafton beat Jamestown to win the region.

Class 4A Region B (Richmond): Draw here: Louisa and Powhatan the top seeds. 2017 State runner-up and traditional power Hanover #6 seed. Dinwiddie upset Louisia and Powhatan got by Hanover to make the Region final and qualify for the State tournament. Dinwiddie beat Powhatan 11-5 for the Regional title.

Class 4A Region C (Northern Virginia):

Dulles District: Riverside (the 2017 3A state runners-up, now in 4A) beat Woodgrove for the district title.

Northwestern District: Millbrooke beat Fauquier for the district title.

Regional draw here: Woodgrove and Fauquier upset the district winners to advance to the regional final/qualify for state tournament. There, Fauquierbeat Woodgrove for the regional title.

Class 4A Region D (Lynchburg/Roanoke): Draw here: defending state champ Liberty Christian and Salem the top seeds. In a massive upset, LCA was beaten in the first round by William Byrd, giving them their first loss of the season and ending it at the same time. MaxPreps #1 ranked Virginia team is out early. Salem and Amherst County advance to regional final/qualify for state tournament and Salem wins 3-2 to take the regional title.

Virginia 3A, 2A, 1A: see vhsl site for draws and results for these smaller classifications of mostly non-DC area schools.

Maryland

At this point, the Maryland State tournament is complete. Full Brackets here at the MPSAA website and direct links to the four State-wide brackets are linked directly below.

Maryland 4-A: Regional champs Howard, Bethesda-Chevy Chase, CH Flowers, and Severna Park face off for the state title. Howard downed B-CC, Severna Park beat the favored CH Flowers in the semis. In the final, Severna Park took a 4-1 lead into the 7th … and Howardscored four to walk-off as state champs after finishing last year as runners-up.

Maryland 3-A: Regional champs Towson, Thomas Johnson, Huntingtown and Chesapeake-Anne Arundel face off for the state title. In the state semis, Thomas Johnson and Huntingtown advanced to the final, and there Thomas Johnsonbeat Huntington for the state title.

Maryland 1-A: Regional champs Sparrows Point, Boonsboro, McDonough and defending state champ St. Michaels face off for the state title. St. Michaels and Boonsboro both advanced to force a re-match of the 2017 final, where Boonsboroturned the tides and took the state title.

USA Today super 25 6/1/18: Riverdale Baptist now ranked #1 in the nation and likely to finish there. wow. St. Christophers in Richmond rises to #22 after taking the VISAA championships. Liberty Christian was at #18 but dropped out with their season-ending loss in regionals.

USA Today High School Experts top 25: Riverdale Baptist at #9 nationally.

These National rankings are dominated by teams in Texas, Florida and California, as you might expect. These teams can play nearly 40 games and usually have at least 15-20 under their belts before DC/MD/VA teams even get going. So its somewhat of an accomplishment just to have a local team get some recognition. In fact, any cold-weather state team appearing in these lists is pretty special.

Major Newspaper Links/Resources for following prep baseball around the state

https://twitter.com/toddeboss/lists/prepbaseball: I maintain an open list at my twitter account via this link, which contains direct links to dozens of local resources (including all the below). Way too many retweets from the travel team accounts especially, but its a good way to keep up with local ball.

#4: Players of the Year/All-State lists and final rankings (this post); publishes early July once all the all-state lists are published.

We have finally passed all the “All-Everything” lists start getting published. Here’s my tracker of them. I try to note the player of the year in each case. If i’m missing something, please let me know. I’ve put results in red that I either cannot find or are behind a paywall or seem to have been discontinued. I realize this is kind of anti-climactic at this point; lots of these players mentioned were drafted weeks ago and may already be playing. But it takes some of these orgs til late June/early July to announce.

Individual Player Accolades Announced

In addition to being playoff-baseball time, this is also the time of the year that we start to see player awards. I’ll put these in as they publish, but we won’t expect most of these until the end of June.

Virginia All 6-A North Regional team: Langley’s Danny Hosley is player of the year (no PG profile/unknown college commit). Madison’s Jake Nielsen pitcher of the year (a Junior w/o a current college commitment).

Virginia All 6-A South Regional team: Austin Cabone from Cox and Hunter Vay a Catcher from Thomas Vale co-players of the year. Cabone is commited to George Mason, Vay to Virginia Commonwealth/VCU.

Here are the Virginia Conference champions, regular season and tournament. All these playoff brackets, if they exist, are at this link at VHSL. I won’t re-link all the playoff brackets per district/region below.

6-A North Regional Conference Tournament Results:

6-A Conference 5/Concorde: Oakton beat Westfield

6-A Conference 6/Liberty: Madison squeaked by Langley

6-A Conference 7/Potomac: West Springfield blanked South County

6-A Conference 8/ Cedar Run: Patriot cruised to the district title over Osborne Park

Regional Tournament Results: The four expected #1 seeds advanced easily in the first round of the Regional tournament; Oakton, Madison, West Springfield and Patriot. In the regional quarters, all four #1 seeds advanced again; Madison advanced easily over Lake Braddock 6-0, Oakton advanced over Battlefield 5-3, West Springfield easily handled Westfield 9-2, and Patriot downed Robinson 1-0 on a walk-off homer. The regional semi-finals on 5/30/17 were both interrupted by a massive storm that moved through and were completed on 5/31/17. In those regional semis, Oakton walked-off with a Sac Fly in the bottom of the 7th to top Madison 3-2 while Patriot held off West Springfield 4-3 to punch their tickets to the State tourney. The Madison/Oakton game was a rematch of an earlier game this season, easily won by Madison, so that result was surprising. Patriot over West Springfield was more expected, given Patriot’s traditional strength.

6-A South Region: mostly covering Richmond, Roanoke and Virginia Beach area. But there are just enough schools in Woodbridge proper to form a 6-A conference closer to DC with teams that are typically considered for All-Met rankings. Unlike 6A-North, just the top two teams from each district make the Regional tournament. Thus, the district tournaments here are lagging the district tournaments for the North region, which finished before theirs even began.

Regional Results: (5-a Regional bracket): There were some small upsets in the play-in games in the first round of the 5A North regional; an under-seeded Stafford fell to Stone Bridge (despite finishing the regular season 19-2) and#3 Seed Atlee easily beat #2 seed Wakefield. The other #2 seeds (Orange and North Stafford) advanced as expected to face the #1 seeds in the quarters. Stone Bridge faces one of the best teams in the state in Halifax, whose #1 starter (Andrew Abbott) has a ridiculous 133/3 K/BB ratio this spring and is UVA bound (h/t NovaBaseballMagazine.com). In the quarters, #1 seeds Briar Woods, Potomac and Halifax all advanced, while North Stafford blanked Marshall to advance to the semis. In the Semis, Briar Woods thrashed Potomac 8-1 while Halifax held off the surprising North Stafford team 2-1 in 12 innings.

Region Final: Briar Woods destroyed top 5-A team Halifax 10-0 to continue a surprising run in the post-season (they weren’t even the #1 seed in their own district).

Regional Results: as with the 6A-South tourney, all four district champs held serve in the quarter finals, mostly with ease. In the Semis, Prince George and Menchville advanced, with the Menchville pitcher throwing a no-hitter to add insult to injury.

4-A Conference 22: Kettle Run easily won the region over Freedom to advance as the 4A North #1 seed with an unblemished 19-0 record.

4A Regionals preview: (bracket here): Kettle Run and Liberty Christian Academy look like they’re destined to meet in the 4A West regional final. In the tournament though, Kettle Run was upset early by Lynchburg’s EC Glass. Liberty Christian won on a walkoff, and they are joined by Harrisonburg and Freedom-South Riding (which recently dropped down from 5A). The semis were a contrast in styles, as LCA won 1-0 over Freedom-South Riding while Harrisonburg topped EC Glass by a football-score of 14-13.

In the 4A regional final, Liberty Christian won another squeaker, topping Harrisonburg 1-0, validating their move to compete in the public schools VHSL.

Preview: I’d say that the two best teams here are Great Bridge (which has great baseball history as of late and just dropped down from 5A) and Hanover (which won the old AAA title just before reclassification and can easily compete with 5A and 6A schools). In the 4A East quarters, Great Bridge, Dinwiddie, Hanover and Jamestown all advanced to the semis. There, the expected wins for Hanover and Great Bridge occurred, setting up a great regional final (thought it took Hanover 13 innings to top Jamestown.

In the 4A East final, Hanoverheld on to top Great Bridge 4-3 in a battle of two of Virginia’s top high schools irrespective of division. This matchup, coincidentally was the 2013 State Final just prior to going to 6 divisions.

3A West: Turner Ashby blanked Brookville 4-0 in the Regional final.

3A East: Riversidebeat Spotsylvania in the final 9-6. Riverside is in Ashburn and is coached by the former Stone Bridge coach Sam Plank, fyi.

Lower Divisions 2A and 1A features teams from the smaller areas of Virginia and we won’t bother covering them this year. IF you want to see their regional and state brackets, visit the VHSL site above.

DCIAA: (2017 playoff bracket): Wilsondefeated School Without Walls 7-4 to take the DCIAA title and continue its ridiculous winning streak within DC public school competition.

DCSAA: (2017 Playoff Bracket): Gonzagabeat Wilson 9-1 to win the DCSAA baseball title (Wilson upset St. Albans to make the final).

DC public (and private) High school seasons are now complete.

Private Leagues: WCAC/MAC/IAC and VISAA/Maryland Private

State-level Private School tourneys:

MIAA: Regular Season: Calvert Hall, Spalding and Gilman were the class of the MIAA Class A all year. Boys Latin takes the Class B regular season title while St. Johns Catholic is again the Class C regular season title winner. Loyola Blakefield came out of nowhere to beat Calvert Hall in the MIAA-A playoffs (their first title in 71 years), having just a .500 record during the season. Boy’s Latin beat Severn to take the MIAA-B final. St. Johns Catholic ended up beating Gerstell Academy 5-0 to win its 4th straight MIAA-C title.

VISAA: The VISAA playoff brackets show the top 8 private schools in each Virginia division. In Division I; DC local schools Paul VI and Potomac School were upset early, with #3 seed Benedictinetaking the VISAA Division I title. The Miller School took the Division II title with defending champ Greenbrier Christian getting upset in the first round. Southampton Academy repeated as VISSA Division III titleists.

Maryland Private School “Governor’s Flag” Tournament: tbd. Draws are here. Only seems like there’s 4 teams for 2017: DeMatha, Spalding, McNamara and Avalon. I’d guess this would be a cake-walk for Spalding.

Of note, Maryland baseball factory Riverdale Baptist won their 4th straight NACA National Championship, finished the year 30-1 and nationally ranked in every publication that attempts to rank national high schools.

All Area private schools’ seasons are now complete.

Individual Player Accolades Announced

In addition to being playoff-baseball time, this is also the time of the year that we start to see player awards. I’ll put these in as they publish, but we won’t expect most of these until the end of June.

Maryland: Harold Cortijo, RHP/OF from Riverdale Baptist. Committed to play at Seminole State U.

Washington DC: Jack Roberts, RHP/SS from St. Johns. Committed to play at Elon.

Virginia: Andrew Abbott, LHP from Halifax County HS. Committed to play for UVA.

Pending Awards to be announced/expected later this spring:

Louisville Slugger All-Americans: pending

Washington Post All-Met teams: pending

The Baltimore Sun’s All-Metro Team: pending

Richmond Times-Dispatch All-Richmond team (if exists): pending

Virginian Pilot All-tidewater team (if exists): pending

Virginia All 6-A North Regional team: Langley’s Danny Hosley is player of the year (no PG profile/unknown college commit). Madison’s Jake Nielsen pitcher of the year (a Junior w/o a current college commitment).

These National rankings are dominated by teams in Texas, Florida and California, as you might expect. These teams can play nearly 40 games and usually have at least 15-20 under their belts before DC/MD/VA teams even get going. So its somewhat of an accomplishment just to have a local team get some recognition. In fact, any cold-weather state team appearing in these lists is pretty special.

Major Newspaper Links/Resources for following prep baseball around the state

https://twitter.com/toddeboss/lists/prepbaseball: I maintain an open list at my twitter account via this link, which contains direct links to dozens of local resources (including all the below). Way too many retweets from the travel team accounts especially, but its a good way to keep up with local ball.